Originally published at National Catholic Register
COMMENTARY: Here are some suggestions for how we can make this jubilee year a time of spiritual renewal in the Catholic Church.
Jubilee 2025 began on Christmas Eve 2024, with the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s in Rome, and will conclude on Jan. 6, 2026, when that door of the Vatican basilica is closed. The theme of this holy year is Peregrinantes in Spem (“Pilgrims in Hope”), and, like every other such celebration since Pope Boniface VIII inaugurated the practice of holy years in 1300, Jubilee 2025 is intended to intensify our experience of God’s grace — the divine life — at work within and around us. How might we cooperate with that ever-present grace so that each of us helps make this jubilee year a time of spiritual renewal in the Church?
Some suggestions:
Deepen your understanding of Christian hope. Hope, one of the three theological virtues, is not optimism, which is a far more fragile commodity — especially in a world that seems to be careening out of control. Hope, by contrast, “never disappoints” because hope is based on “God’s love [which] has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit
